As a nidfag, The Swarmlord pisses me off

As a nidfag, The Swarmlord pisses me off

Everything about him is so uninspired. The name is just a variation on "Broodlord" and doesn't sound like a name that would be coined in-universe by people who faced it (unlike with other nid characters)

Design-wise he's just a tyrant, but with more of what a tyrant already has (one extra horn, one extra tongue, one extra beard-horn, one extra stinger, and three extra swords) it's so fucking cheap and unimaginative. And the miniature has even less variations. The swords aren't even different from each other so you don't get the idea that there's anything special about them.

And the fluff, obviously, is the worst part. He's just a tyrant, but stronger and smarter. So strong and smart in fact, that APPARENTLY the Norn Queens need to summon him (oh yeah cause now tyrants are like deamons who download themselves into a body or someshit) to win battles cause he's somehow smarter than them. Smarter than a Dominatrix even.

And keep in mind that the Hive Mind is universal. Which means that EACH hive fleet has access to the ENTIRETY of the tyranid race's knowledge. But apparently that's not enough. Gotta call upon the Swarmlord cause he's smarter than everybody else combined.

And how do they show that he's super smart? By having him job against Marneus Calgar and other heroes.

So we've got a guy who's supposed to be the "face" of the entire Tyranid race, but looks even blander than a cheaply-converted tyrant, has no gimmicks or character traits aside from his extra swords, has the least impressive name of all tyranid characters, and can't even be assed to do what he was designed for because he spends his time duelling with assholes who end up killing him, despite supposedly being smarter than everyone.

He's like John Cena if John Cena constantly ended up jobbing.

Wow.

He's just an in-game asset. Everything else was crudely slapped together afterwards and we're supposed to be impressed by that. I find that offensive.

yea

If you were a real nid player you would be crying about how useless half your models are.

...

I said I'm a nidfag, not a nid player

>He's just an in-game asset. Everything else was crudely slapped together afterwards and we're supposed to be impressed by that. I find that offensive.

This literally describes everything ever in Warhammer 40k. It's all slapped together half assed shit that only exists to justify hilarious nerdy insanity. It's people taking it too seriously that ruins it all.

Ok.

You are wrong. Most of the fluff is carefully and ingeniously slapped together.

What's excessively serious about wanting a main character who's actually badass?

Honestly, I never cared much for the swarmlords fluff. To me he's just another random hive tyrant.
I do love the way he looks tho, quadruple swords are pretty cool, man.

I mostly agree. I think special characters in Tyranids shouldn't be personalities. If you were gonna do anything, it would be a Mouth of Sauron but for the Hive Mind. As is, unique variations with specialty evolutions being 'special characters' as a way to limit how many can be in an army is fine. Just don't give them personalities.

As for his design, Goro Tyrant is meh sure. But so are all the other special characters. They all look like their genus, but with more spikes or exposed bone or whatever.

they didn't give the Swarmlord a personality

the issue is that they gave him a boring gimmick: being the best

OP, you seem to be pushing a lot of bullshit onto the swarmlord that just isn't there. He's just a suped-up tyrant with a particularly solid mind full of experiences that the hivemind keeps on a wriggly, biting usb somewhere.

You massive faggot.

that's wrong
The Red Terror has a very strong design; it's a gigantic eyeless maw attached to a body with big claws, it's the ravener design pushed to its extreme. Old One eye doesn't just have exposed bone, it's also got fucking huge crab claws and it's covered with seashells, all of which contributes to its White Whale theme.
The Parasite is a weird huge evolution of the ripper that's bigger than a gargoyle and can lay eggs into people. The Doom has unique psychic abilities and looks more like the cool concept art for Zoanthropes while also being reminiscent of eldar structures, so he's perfect as a nemesis to the eldar. Deathleaper has a pretty boring design, but its unique tactical role makes up for that.

They all have a simple, but compelling concept behind them. Swarmlord has nothing, he's just the best tyrant that ever tyranted

It's my personal interpretation I suppose. I see a higher intellect than other tyranids, and possession of memory, and free will to come up with tactics; and I perceive that as a personality separate from any other Synapse Creature.

the how come he's shoved all over the fluff and literally "to a tyrant what a tyrant is to a gaunt"?

Seriously read the fluff, it's ridiculous. i know it's fun to be "the reasonable guy who keeps his cool and sees that it's not a big deal" but here you're in the wrong.

It has no more free will than any other nid. It's still part of the hivemind. The memory it has is of countless billions of battles the hivemind has been through. Not a real memory, more like a file full of enemy strategies they've experienced and the ways they reacted and what worked and what didn't.

That's an identity, not a personality. A personality would be "oh he really loves killing ultramarines" or shit like that

No, they're HIS experiences. At this point Tyrants are basically tyranid daemons

He is the hivemind you dumbass, just like the gaunts and carnifices are the hivemind. They are 'his' insofar as those particular experiences are paired with the massive drain of resources that is the swarmlord's body.

That's how things should work in theory according to the fluff that was established up until the 5th edition, but when you read the actual fluff written in the 5th edition about Tyrants, you will read that they are autonomous spirits with their very own experiences and that the hivemind calls upon them for this specific reason.

The Swarmlord is not a type of tyrant, it's the soul of a specific tyrant, whose body is regrown whenever it's necessary.

like an eldar craftworld would with the spirit stone of a particularly skilled general.

It's dumb, it contradicts the rest of the nid lore, it shits all over their "faceless enemy" charm, but that's the way things are, now.

You did start getting into abilities, and not the design. I was thinking of Deathleaper specifically with that post by the way. And I suppose it's unfair of me to be so critical when special characters for other races also don't look radically different from their species.

Where are you fags getting this from? He's just as faceless as everything else. The hivemind doesn't teleport the swarmlord from battle to battle, they have to grow a new one every single time.

I think you guys are taking the perspective of narration to seriously when reading the fluff, and that's just silly.

The Hivemind downloads the Swarmlord (who is a soul) into a new body

you seem to be under the impression that he is a genus of tyrant

>too seriously
just reading what's written isn't "taking too seriously" when it's written from an objective perspective

the design is good when it properly reflects a theme.

Swarmlord's appearance doesn't let us understand that he's super smart and very experienced, it just shows us he has four swords.

And when he uses them in the fluff, it's ridiculous: he's supposed to engage in epic sparring duels with guys who are a fifth his size like they can even reach him, if anything it's super underwhelming. Like, really? you got four arms with giant blades and you have trouble dismembering a tiny midget who doesn't even have a sword?

The swarmlord is a bigger, badder tyrant. It requires a shit ton of biomass and comes with baked-in tactical genius. There is no soul, no personality, it's just an expensive bug. If you have some canon that contradicts then by all means show me how I'm wrong.

>Swarmlord's appearance doesn't let us understand that he's super smart and very experienced, it just shows us he has four swords.
To be fair you'd have to be very experienced and skillful to use four swords. It'd be real easy to lop something of yours off, especially with all the bitz nids have.

Those guys that are a fifth of his size can be timeless daemons, superhumans, magic fukken elves. Come on man this is the dumbest gripe in 40k.

Why not call him the Floodlord ? Why not give him some tentacles ? Why not give him wings ? And a mouth that can shoot acid ? Along with super powerful psychic powers ? Have the fluff say some story on how the DNA of many great heroes of past civilizations are used in his body and perhaps have him kill some character from the setting to gain some new ability (even if it's just a +1 to one of his stats) ? Or perhaps make him able to speak and convince people to willingly give themselves to the Great Devourer ? Why not have him be the first tyranid in existence ?

I AM SWARMLORD. I AM NOBODY'S BITCH.

YOU, ARE MINE.

Nids are evolution and adaptation to a stupid level. There probably wasn't a first tyranid, just creatures in a constant state of flux.

I find Tyranid special characters bullshit in general.

If you go hivemind, you cannot go individual heroes. Period.

Ok

Swarmlord always was kinda unnecessary, but I think he's just a byproduct of GW's "always gotta be something biggerer and badderer" approach to design. Less a problem and more just a symptom.

The Swarmlord is the product of the original writer leaving GW after 4th edition codex and the guy taking over beeing way to much into the stereotypical "badass character" trope which plagues 40k in general.

Cruddace basically made the same thing Ward did with Draigo: Take the most badass generic character in a faction and push everything over the top until you bleed. And considering how GW HQ thought about their customers back then it was probably even pushed.
The big difference between Draigo and the Swarmlord is that Draigo at least has something interesting and unique in his background. While the Swarmlord is so uninspired it hurts.

Everything about him looks like Crudi was desperate to think of something but had no idea about Nids in the first place, let alone a mind for something alien and fun. So he just looked up what is the most badass thing and made it more extrem. Him thinking like a Space Marine fanboy (which he admits himself to be) he basically made a Tyranid-Chaptermaster with tyranidy thingis instead of the setup a 15year old would give his chaptermaster and brag about how awesome he is and how he would beat the most badass character in his friends army... so he put that in the fluff too.

The Swarmlord is the embodiment of everything a teenage things is badass in Nid form. Its a big bad monster with big weapons that is more badass then anything else and he totally kicks ass. In the fluff. In the game you just bast his ass with heavy weapons like a bitch.

>people can accept that a warrior is better than a gaunt
>people can accept that a hive tyrant is better than a warrior
>people can't accept that a swarmlord is better than a hive tyrant
???

the swarmlord is the tyranid prime to warriors or the trygon prime to the normal trygon. he just isn't that much different to a generic hive tyrant.

if he was just a different unit type, a specialist hive tyrant or whatver, nobody would complain. but he is supposed to be the most advanced and best creature the hive mind came up with. and his traits are... beeing a hive tyrant. but with swords. and stuff....